Our American President mused in a New York Times interview that the series of speedbumps that have knocked him off course for the past five to six years has a lot to do with the extremists he faces in the other party:
“Our politics are dysfunctional,” said the [P]resident… “Increasingly politicians are rewarded for taking the most extreme maximalist positions,” he said, “and sooner or later, that catches up with you.”
Extreme and divisive politics sure does catch up to you. For example, you reaching across the aisle when you finish a bitter election season and your best negotiating point with your opponents is, “I won.” (This is especially true if it comes right after spending a year promising “a new kind of politics.”) And once is bad enough, but then if you do it again, you’re really going to have problems.
Hopefully the Obama Adminstration can overcome such a toxic political enviroment.
Jim Eltringham 